The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-04-23

In other words, Ine unSouly way
shall perish. This utterance is at
one with number from the Hebrew
poets and prophets. 1t was also said,
"For there shall be no reward to the
evil man; the candle of the wicked
shall be put out" Or, interpreted, he
will suffer defeat in his plans. The
winds of the Lord blow upon the candle
he carries to light his way in the dark
ness Of evil doing, and the candle is
put out. and he sees no farther in the
way. Again it was said, 1.-The lip OF
truth shall be established forever, but
a lying tongue is but for moment"
You may recall the curt utterance OF
Ralph Waldo Emerson in recognition
that lie can not be established, ~ GU
can't write up what gravitates down."
A lie is rickety; all wrong is rickety.
1t is false; it is out of harmony with
the real, and can have no resting place
in Gods eternal purpose, nor long amid
the realities of time. Generations per-
petuate it, as each generation, starting
from the cradle, perpetuates the fraiI-
ties and needs of common humanity;
but over each generation presides the
power that makes for righteousness,
and wrong doing is suffering perpetual
defeat in the righteous government of
God, and it is true "no wrong can go
down secure through the ages" Sell
dom does it go secure through the time
allotted to one generation. The pro-
phet jeremiah approached the truth
when he said: ''In those days they shall
say no more: The fathers have eaten
a sour grape, and the children's teeth
are set on edge. But every one shall
die for his own iniquity; every man that
eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall
be set on edge"
DR.. Talmage, few years since,
speaking of thumbscrews of liberation,
quoted the terse words Of Robert Hall,
Nothing that is violent lasts long, "and
said, You and 1 know as well as Rob-
ert Hall, that anything that is not
wisely Christian has in it elements of
destruction" He thinks, "Fanaticism
dies of itself" that sit never lasts more
than five or ten years"
We, as Christian Universalists, are
proudly conscious that all, or nearly all :,
who profess faith in the Christ, believe,
in some sense, in the triumph of right
over wrong, of God over devil, and are
more happy to see that belief assuming
more and more rational and thorough
form. The belief has existed in very
irrational and incomplete form. general
ly, in the other churches; but so certain
are they of victory of Christ over
wrong, that they will not let us, as
Universalists, claim the exclusive be-
lief in the victory. You know there is
a sort of select circle of orthodoxy call
ing itself evangelical, and accordingly
a few ministers in the city, minority,
withdrew from our Pastors Conference.
and styled themselves the evangelical
ministers, compelling our thought of the
self-righteous. AS one or two did not
want to associate with the Jewish
Rabbi, or with the Universalist minis
ter, for religious reasons, while not
with few others considered eyangeli-
cal for political reasons, was moved
to express an assumed surprise to one
of the leading orthodox clergymen of
the city, a member Of our Conference,
that any protesting faith in Christ
would refuse to fraternize fully one
that believed in the complete victory
of the Christ over sin. He asked whom
meant as believing in the victory of
Christ. l answered that l meant my
self. But he quickly reminded me,
as if l were according too much
to myself and church; that he and
others did not doubt the victory of
Christ. But what is their conception
of victory? Generally it is incomplete;
not thorough. The conception is of
two mighty personal beings, God and
the devil, in a contest. God gets the
devil down, and holds him there for
ever. But has the ung0dly way persisted;
has wickedness ceased; is the devil any
less a devil; the wicked any less wickedY
The wicked are already chained in
wickedness by the power of habit. Gods
church gains no victory over wicked
ness by binding the wicked to what
their habit had already bound them.
The victory of God, Of Christ, is to save
the wicked man, and make righteous
man of him; thus is wiekedness over
come and the divine purpose made vic
torious.
1t is not to a real Christian purpose
to say that the wicked are overpowered
in confinement. That is no victory of
righteousness over wrong. That would
simply be the victory Of force and with
out any necessary moral quality. When
we speak of the victory of Christ, of
right over wrong, we touch a matter of
and the victory of right
eous principles over the wrong means no |
less than the subsection, aye, the extinc-
-ion, of wrong and the reign of right |
and the living of right life |